Many sports require a player to manipulate a ball with his or her hands. With the sport of basketball in particular, each player will typically hold, throw, and dribble the basketball frequently during the course of the game. In addition to requiring a player to manipulate the ball in a variety of different ways, basketball also requires that a player manipulate the ball using a variety of nuanced techniques. For example, in many sports, the game ball may be gripped by the entirety of a player's hand (e.g., baseball or softball), cradled securely in the player's arms (e.g., football or rugby), or slapped with an open hand or fist (e.g., handball or volleyball). In addition to each of these techniques, however, basketball typically requires that a player use his or her fingertips to manipulate and control the basketball. More particularly, a user will use his or her fingertips to dribble the ball or to precisely control the trajectory of the ball when throwing it to another player, e.g., using a “bounce pass.”
Perhaps most importantly, however, a player will use his or her fingertips to precisely control the rotation and trajectory of the basketball when throwing or “shooting” the ball toward the hoop of a basketball goal in an effort to score. The rotation of a ball can generally be segregated into two components: speed of rotation and alignment of the ball during rotation. The speed of rotation relates to how fast the ball is revolving about an axis, while alignment relates to the degree to which the angle of that axis remains constant relative to the direction of the flight of the ball toward the target. To some extent, these components are related, for example, as a faster rotational speed helps to maintain a ball's alignment.
As a result of these features, contact feel or “touch” that a basketball provides to a player, and particularly to a player's fingertips, is an important characteristic. If the surface of a basketball is too smooth, a player's fingertips may slip when dribbling, passing or shooting the ball. On the other hand, if the basketball has a surface that is too sticky or “grippy,” a player may find it difficult to separate his or her fingertips from the ball with a sufficient degree of precision to provide the ball with the desired direction of spin, rotational speed and trajectory. Improvements to the “touch” or “feel” of ball structures would be a welcome advance in the art.